St. Landry democrat., 1887-09-03
HOUSEHOLD HYGIENE.
CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF Ma
LARA AND IT'S PREVENTION.
Noxious Air Generated in Marshes Largely
the Cause of the Disease-The Germ
Theory of Klebs-How Quinine Works
Some Words on This Drugs Use.
ICopyri0hted, 1851

dull and muddy complexion, often fol
lowed by chills and fever, usually re
curing every second day. The less pro
nounced symptoms mentioned usually &C
under the name of malaria, while, if the
chills and fever have developed, the
malady is recognized as malarial, inter
mittent or remittent fever
The frequency with which the diagno
sis of malaria is made has given occasion
to many sarcastic filings at the expense
of the doctors. Most of this sarcasm is
understood for malarial debility, as il
may be called, is a real malady, due tc
the absorption of miasmatic poison
and is not always caused, as facetious
newspaper men would have US believe
by excessive indulgence in juleps OF
cocktails
The word malaria" in its primitive
Specification, meant bad air." but it has
for SO many years been used to designate
q definite form of disease that the
modern definition ought to be retained
and the term restricted to the class OF
affections characterized by the symp'
toms mentioned at the beginning of this
paper and others related to them.
Malarial diseases may occur in all
parts of the world, but are more fire..
quent and more intense in character in
the tropics, where great heat, moisture
and decaying vegetable matter are always
present. From the frequency with which
chills and other malarial manifestations
occur in the vicinity of low lands and
marshes, the latter have for many years
been credited with a special agency in
their production. The first writer who
defended this view with great ability
was an Italian named Lancisi, in the be-
ginning of the last century. Lancisi,
from his observations of malariy fevers
in the vicinity of Rome, where these
diseases are extremely frequent and
severe, concluded that a noxious air or
miasm is generated in marshes, which,
If inhaled, causes chills and fever.
The hypothesis of Lancisi, based as it
was upon correct observation, was gen.
orally accepted and is still held by the
large majority of medical men through
out the world. 1t was found, however,
that it failed to explain all the circum-
stances surrounding outbreaks of mala-
ria, and other conditions were sought
for which might account for some things
the other theory left unexplained.
To an American, the late DR.. S. &.
Mitchell, of Philadelphia, is due the
credit of first having suggested that
malarial diseases are due to the vegeta-
ton of a cryptogamic plant; and as the
conditions of development for this plant
were especially favorable in marshy
places, this accounted for the greater
prevalence and intensity of these dis
eases in such localities. Other observers
seemed to corroborate the views of DR..
Mitchell, but exact researches with i'm
proved methods and instruments failed
to demonstrate their truth.
In the meantime the prodigious devel
opment of the modern germ theory of dis
ease had taken place. In 1879 Professor
Edwin Klebs. German pathologist, with
the assistance of one of his pupils, an
Italian named Tommasi Crudeli, pub
lished what appeared to be very exact
observations going to show that minute
vegetable germ, a bacillus, had been
found by them in the blood IF malarial
patients, in malarial soil, and in the air
collected above malarial marshland.
With the exception Of few Italian OBJ
servers, however, these researches were
not confirmed Notably in this country
series of observations were undertaken by
DR.. George M. Sternberg, which failed to
corroborate the claims of Klebs and
malaria, but the high scientific repute of
these observers nevertheless caused gen
eral acceptance of their views. About
year after Klebs announced his discov-
cry, a French army surgeon by the name
OF Laveran submitted a report to the
French Academy of Medicine, in which
he claimed to have discovered certain
movable and changeable bodies in
the blood of malarial fever patients
which ne had studied in Algiers.
Coming from Africa, this OBJ |
servation attracted very little at
years to accept nothing in science unless
~ 40 oeoAAPCd WltA tuc dppIONdi VI ocI1lu
or Vienna. However, it seems that Mon
sieur Laveran was right after all, and
unless all scientific observation is worth
less, his crescentic, oscillating and fagel-
late bodies are the real organisms of ma
larial fever Laveran's observations
were first repeated in Rome, where DR..
sternberg, who was then on a visit to !
Italy, studied them in the blood of mala-
rial fever patients, and on his return to
America early in 1886 had the satisfaction
OF likewise demonstrating them in the
blood OF patient with chills and fever
in Bayview Hospital at Baltimore. Pro-
lessor Councilman, of Johns Hopkins
University, and Professor Osler, of Phila-
delphl2, afterWard saw these organisms
in numerous cases, and have been enabled
to study their behavior during the differ
emit stages of the disease From their
research it appears that the organisms
are most frequent at the beginning of the
chill and gradually diminish until the
FEVER passes of, when they nearly or
quite disappear from the blood.
A strange circumstance is, that whereas
all other known disease germs are of
vegetable nature these latest discovered
malarial germs are believed to be animal
Ia or1gln-in fact, to belong to the class
Of ame5a However, their life-history
has not yet been sufficiently studied to
enable this to be decided positiyely.